Like thoughts inside a dream
by frozen-delight
Summary: What do you do when you think your boyfriend might be secretly in love with his big brother? [Sam/Jess, Sam/Dean implied or ambiguous, Jess POV, Stanford Era.]


A/N: This is a remix of musesfool's fantastic fic swim in my blood when it's warm, written for the Remix Madness challenge 2015. Title taken from Led Zeppelin's _Kashmir_. Because it's all Led Zeppelin's fault. :)

Unbetaed, apologies for any mistakes.

* * *

 **Like thoughts inside a dream**

Jess met Sam Winchester on a Wednesday. Were you to ask Sam, though, he'd say they met on a Friday.

Jess met Sam when she dropped her books after the art history class they both attended and he picked them up for her. She wanted to invite him for a coffee then, but he was too distracted to pay any attention to her, cradling his silent phone in his hands like it was the key to all the world's secrets.

Sam met Jess six months later when their mutual friend Brady introduced them at a party. The next day, Sam invited her for a coffee, fumbling over his words, an adorable blush spreading over his cheeks, and she said _yes_.

Sometimes Jess wants to tell him that she spent six months watching him in their art history class before they started dating, unable to take her eyes of the mysterious, good-looking giant with dimples. She wasn't the only one watching either.

But Sam's so full of secrets Jess feels entitled to keep one of her own.

o0o

The first time they sleep together, Sam hangs up a sock on the door and plays _Kashmir_ on his crappy stereo. It's the last thing she would ever have expected from this serious-minded, quiet straight-A student. Then again, she hadn't really expected him to be such a tornado of lust either, making her come twice with just his tongue.

She calls him a cliché later, laughing.

Nuzzling her neck, he answers, smug, "Worked, didn't it? Things become clichés for a reason."

She hugs him tight, then. "Sure, but it wasn't the cliché I was expecting from you."

He gives her the mysterious little half-smile that appears on his face every time he comes close to revealing something about himself and doesn't, and his tongue darts out to wet his lip.

 _Kashmir_ doesn't make a reappearance, and she never catches him listening to classic rock, his taste in music as bland and modern as it's always been. But one day they're invited to her cousin's birthday party, who happens to be a huge Styx fan, and when _Renegade_ reverberates through the room, the line of Sam's shoulders is the most relaxed she's ever seen it.

For some reason, the sight makes her feel vaguely uneasy.

o0o

They have their first major fight shortly after they move in together. Jess knows exactly how she wants to decorate their apartment, but she's willing to respect Sam's choices too and more than ready to compromise.

Frustratingly enough, Sam doesn't seem to have any opinion whatsoever. Every time she proposes something, he agrees with a slightly surprised frown as though he can't believe that she's asking at all.

"I want you to like it, too!" she bursts out one day when they're picking out curtains and Sam just keeps on shrugging every time she shows him a sample. "This is our home – I don't want you to hate it!"

"Why would I hate it?" he asks back, completely missing the point. "Buy the red curtains if you want, or the blue ones, I don't care either way."

She's so hurt that she can barely keep from bursting into tears in the middle of the shop.

Something ugly crosses Sam's face then, something stronger than contempt, something close to hatred even, or so she thinks. It makes her feel silly, flimsy, insignificant.

They don't speak to each other for the rest of the day.

That night they lie awake next to each other in bed for a long time, not touching. Then Sam confesses, voice oh so gentle, "I've never had a real home before."

"I'm sorry," she whispers and snuggles against him.

"I'm sorry too," he says and wraps his arms around her.

o0o

"What are you thinking about?" she asks Sam one evening when they're lying on their bed, limbs entwined, breathing hard, still covered in sweat and come, the sheets twisted around their ankles. Sam's quiet again. He's always so quiet.

"My brother," he answers after a beat. "Dean."

She stares at him. He never talks about his family, and after what he said about not having a home, not to mention all the scars she's discovered on his body, she thought she knew why.

"Yeah. What's he like?"

"He's a huge jerk," he says, and his face splits into the most blinding grin she's ever seen. It's almost painfully bright.

She blinks. "Okay," she mumbles, a little unsure what to say.

"He'd like you," Sam adds after a brief pause, his thumb stroking over her belly. She shivers at the touch. "He'd hit on you so hard the moment he sees you."

That Sam thinks Dean would hit on his girlfriend really does make him sound like a jerk. But somehow Sam doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with that. If anything, he sounds fond.

She gazes down at his hand on her stomach. Splayed across her skin, huge and tender, it suddenly feels like it weighs a ton, and she has to remind herself to keep breathing around the sick realization that unfurls inside her.

Sam falls asleep with his head on her shoulder shortly afterwards, the soft strands of his hair tickling her skin. She lies awake for the rest of the night, listening to his quiet breathing. Images of Sam's mouth on her, moving to the beat of _Kashmir_ , of Sam's secretive half-smiles, of Sam's long fingers, curling around the cellphone he doesn't use as though waiting for a call that never comes, chase incessantly through her mind. The cold, creepy thought of Dean inserts itself into each precious memory of their time together, settling over it, tarnishing it, like a greasy film on a window.

"Sleep well?" Sam asks when he kisses her the next morning, easy and affectionate.

He looks the same way he always does, the wonderful dork with the cute dimples and the wild bangs that she first fell in love with; nothing to suggest that her dark nocturnal suspicions are at all grounded in reality, and for a moment she thinks that she must have gone crazy, imagining things that weren't there.

Then she remembers that otherworldly bright grin when he talked about his brother, so different from how he's looking at her now, and her heart sinks.

There's no way she can ask, so she stretches leisurely and smiles. "Sure."

She never expected it to be so easy to lie.

o0o

Several months later, Dean shows up at their apartment in the middle of the night, and it turns out Sam was right – he immediately starts hitting on her.

Maybe she should feel flattered. Dean is beautiful, there's no other word for it, and having all of his charm focused on her, a dazzling assembly of big Bambi eyes, soft lips and shining teeth, would be more than enough to sweep her off her feet any other day.

Right now, though, all it does is fill her with sick worry of what effect it might have on _Sam_. He certainly seems electrified by the encounter, and the next thing she knows, he's leaving, excitement thrumming under his skin, going away on some mystery mission with his big brother.

She's never made things difficult before, but there's no way she can hold back now, nagging him about the job interview that never really mattered to her, and she doesn't even care that she sounds like the whiny, jealous girlfriends she's always despised so much. "At least tell me where you're going."

He doesn't. It's like he doesn't see her, like he's not even there anymore, long before the door closes behind him.

Alone in the silent flat, she doesn't know what to do with herself. She's not sure what just happened. And she's not sure if he's coming back.

With shaking hands, she cleans the flat and takes care of the laundry. _Sam's a decent guy_ , _he wouldn't,_ she tells herself at least a dozen times, but every single time a horrible little voice in her head asks back, _Wouldn't he?_

When she opens the drawer where Sam keeps his underwear and socks to place a couple freshly washed, ironed and folded items inside, she catches sight of a small cube-shaped box tucked in one of its corners, and for the first time since Dean arrived the tightness in her chest eases a little.

She knows she shouldn't look, that this is maybe the only secret Sam's ever been justified to keep from her, but she opens the box nonetheless. She finds a small ring sitting inside, silver, plain but tasteful. When she tries it on, it fits perfectly.

Smiling down at her hand, she's still not sure if she's only been imaging things these past few months, unnecessarily fretting over bizarre scenarios that only ever happen in Greek tragedies, but at least she feels reassured in her knowledge that her boyfriend really does love her, never mind all the other things she might not know about him. (Might never know about him.) That's good enough for now.

Stowing the ring and the box back in the drawer, she puts away the rest of the laundry, humming a random tune under her breath. Then she goes out to the grocery store.

 _All I see turns to brown as the sun burns the ground and my eyes fill with sand as I scan this wasted land_ , blasts through the speakers. She dumps a packet of sugar in her basket and tries hard not to see it as a sign.

She leaves Sam a quick voicemail _Hey, it's me… Come home soon, okay? I love you._ and carries on with her shopping. She'll make him some cookies for when he comes back.

* * *

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